


Between Choice and Command

by sweetNsimple



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Anal Sex, And then Nicholai happens, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bad Flirting, Begging, Biting, Bolivian Carlos Oliveira, By that I mean he has never had sex with men, Consent, Courting Rituals, Derogatory Language, Dirty Talk, Enthusiastic Consent, Game: Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020), Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mikhail Victor is a good man, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-Raccoon City, Pre-Resident Evil 3 Remake, Protective Nicholai Ginovaef, Racism, Sergei Vladimir is a very bad man, Spanking, Still an asshole Nicholaie Ginovaef, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, U.B.C.S., Virgin Carlos Oliveira, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:56:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28636632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: “I never thought I would see the day where I was grateful for Nicholai, that heartless bastard,” Mikhail said.“He didn’t do it for me,” Carlos pointed out tiredly.“No,” Mikhail agreed. “He does nothing for anyone but himself. He thinks only in currency and what people owe him. That being said… I do not believe he cares for Vladimir’s habit of forcing himself on company that does not want him.”
Relationships: Nicholai Ginovaef | Nikolai Zinoviev/Carlos Oliveira
Comments: 30
Kudos: 26





	Between Choice and Command

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [U.B.C.S Kink Shorts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27967061) by [AnotherAnon0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAnon0/pseuds/AnotherAnon0). 



Carlos had met Colonel Vladimir, Platoon Leader Viktor, and Sergeant Zinoviev in some random order after U.B.C.S. had recruited him from a Bolivian jail cell. His first thought after finding out all three were Russian was, _‘Why the fuck are Russians so goddamn white?’_ They were white from their skin to their hair, as if the Eastern Slavic winters had bleached them. For all Carlos knew, all Russians looked like that to blend in with the snow, like foxes or rabbits or some shit.

So, yeah. In the beginning, he had had no idea what his life was going to become. Hadn’t even been thinking to himself that the Sarge was attractive, wasn’t even thinking about chasing after the Sarge. He sure as hell hadn’t been thinking about sex with the snowman.

And then, somehow, Carlos was having sex with the snowman.

What the fuck.

Life was so goddamn strange, wasn’t it? His big sister would be praying for his soul if she was still alive to see what he had become. He sure had become something that needed praying for.

~:~

His first day out of U.B.C.S. training camp and into the U.B.C.S. barracks, he met this kid named Murphy.

“You did _what_?” Carlos asked, disbelieving that this baby-faced boy was capable of that much _carnage_.

Murphy was nodding as he scooped Carlos’s tater tots off his tray and practically stuffed the entire potato slaughter in his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open, like an infant, and Carlos grimaced as he sat back on his bench out of range.

Murphy eventually managed to swallow his mouthful and chugged it down with Gatorade. “They took my little brother,” he reasoned. “Told him that he’d belong to the gang if he survived the hazing. He thought they meant that he would be _a part_ of them.” Murphy shook his head, jaw tight. He looked years older with all that hate in his doe eyes. “Nah, man. They meant that he would _belong to them_. They used him like a cheap whore for three days, all twenty of them.” Carlos nudged his own Gatorade forward in offering. Murphy snatched it up and guzzled like he was trying to get rid of a bad taste.

“He didn’t make it.” It wasn’t a question Carlos was asking. It was a statement. He figured the kind of hatred and rage on the kid’s face only came from a hopeless situation. From running into a dead-end.

For a moment, Murphy looked _painfully_ young, like he was about to start crying. He swallowed it back by some force of will and nodded, eyes on his empty tray. “Didn’t make it,” he repeated in a low, hoarse voice. “He survived them, but he didn’t survive himself.”

Carlos nodded back. He was feeling a bond with this kid. “At least you got them all.”

Murphy slammed his eyes shut, fist white-knuckled around the plastic bottle. It crunched as he warped it out of shape. “Doesn’t bring my little brother back, though.”

Carlos stabbed at his peas, eating more out of a sense of obligation to keep living than to enjoy the taste. Admittedly, just the peas were better than what he had been getting in prison.

“My older sister, Alicia, she raised me after our mom died when I was real young.” Murphy glanced at him, listening solemnly. “She was my world. She taught me how to read, how to tie my shoes, how to speak English, Quechua, _and_ Spanish. She was so goddamn smart. A beacon of hope for our village. For the longest time, I actually thought she _was_ my mom. We didn’t have a lot, but I had her and that was enough to make me happy.” He braced his elbows on the table, pushing his tray toward the center. He leaned in and Murphy mirrored him. “Some American with a summerhouse near my village got a look at her and took her away from me. I was still just a kid, skin and bones, there was nothing I could do to get her back, and I tried, I tried _so fuckin’ hard_. Then this guy, Angelo Vargaz, told me that he would bring my sister home if I helped him fight for his cause. He wanted our country to stop being exploited by Americans just like the one that took my sister. He wanted to make our country safe for our women and children. He was fighting for everything I was passionate about.” Carlos shrugged a huge shoulder – no long a skin and bones child. “I signed my life away. He brought my sister home. I got to fight for what I believed in with men and women who thought the same way I did, and I got to take care of my sister and put food on the table. I got to watch her get married and be happy again, despite everything that happened to her.”

“So she got a happy ending.” Murphy slouched back on the bench, unable to hide his jealousy.

“For a little while,” Carlos admitted. “Then the government caught us. A lot of the people I had fought with were executed. My sister… she was taken. _Given_ to someone, I don’t know who. I just know when she died ‘cause the guards came by and showed me a video of her body getting dumped in a landfill.” Carlos couldn’t even force himself to eat anymore. He put his tray on top of Murphy’s empty one and watched detachedly at Murphy descended on the food with hostility. “They took that video just for me,” he muttered more to himself, under his breath. “She was naked and covered in bruises.”

“Impossible to forget,” Murphy muttered around a slushy mess of mashed peas. “How they look after they’re broken and gone.”

Their gazes met, brethren in suffering. Carlos held out a fist and Murphy bumped it with his own.

Carlos knew that, no matter what happened in this hired gun business, he’d have Murphy on his side.

~::~

The same could not be said for Mikhail, the Platoon leader. Not that Carlos doubted the guy, or even thought he was a bad man. All in all, Mikhail seemed as good as anyone could get in the U.B.C.S. He was strict without being cruel, respectable without being feared, and commanding without being overbearing. Carlos had heard some mutterings of the guy being too soft, but Carlos liked that Mikhail was capable of the occasional positive feedback and emotional support. Mikhail definitely deserved better than this hellhole, especially given that his platoon was made up entirely of people that Umbrella had broken out of prison.

While there were people in the platoon that Carlos could relate with, even understand, that didn’t mean that every one of them had a good reason for what had landed them behind bars. Carlos found at least three guys to be so revolting that he couldn’t even stand to be near them. There were handfuls more that Carlos avoided outside of training. The number of people he trusted at his back could be counted on one hand. Mikhail couldn’t take Carlos’s side over everyone else’s in the platoon, so there was doubt that his leader would come to his rescue if things got ugly.

At least he had Tyrell and Murphy on his side.

Tyrell did not have what Carlos considered a good excuse for getting imprisoned. The guy had been selling weapons on the black market for the French Legion when he had been caught and court-martialed. That said, Carlos did not find Tyrell unforgivable. As a matter of fact, Tyrell proved to be friendly and loyal despite a track record of only caring about money.

Some fuckers tried to corner Carlos in the showers, clucking about their “Salsa Fever” as if they thought they were funny. Tyrell had come out of fucking nowhere and, well, Carlos got a pay deduction, Mikhail roared at him like a lion, and an official warning after three dead and two injured were transported out of the U.B.C.S. barracks. Carlos had kept his mouth shut about Tyrell’s involvement and, probably because Carlos had crushed their nut sacks, so had the two surviving assaulters.

It wasn’t the heart-to-heart that had bonded him with Murphy, but it was something just as strong. They had introduced themselves – despite already knowing of one another – as Tyrell had aided Carlos in scrubbing down the showers of all blood and gore.

Tyrell wasn’t a big fan of Murphy, but he didn’t mind the kid either. Carlos managed to keep his two friends close to him during social hours and had managed to bribe and manipulate their dormmates until they had a corner to themselves. Carlos slept on a top bunk bed while Murphy slept below him and Tyrell kept his territory in the top bunk pressed against the wall. The bottom bunk under him had belonged to one of the attackers that didn’t make it.

It felt great. It felt _good_ to be a part of something again, to have people he could rely on. Carlos had missed that feeling so much and he hadn’t full recognized it until he, Tyrell, and Murphy started acting like a real unit, in and out of training.

According to Sarge, their cohesion was their entire problem.

~:::~

Carlos had never played with paintball guns until he became a mercenary and that was the funniest shit he had ever heard. He, Murphy, and Tyrell got suited up for a mock battle while Carlos cackled about feeling like a little kid. Every member in the mock battle had a different color of paintball because teamwork was not actually encouraged. The only rule was that there were no rules and victory went to the last man standing. Mikhail had told Carlos that there _were_ mock battles with teams, but that would be later after assessing their individual strengths and weaknesses.

The three had already decided that they were working together. Murphy was excellent at long-distance sniping, Tyrell was a tactician, and Carlos was the brawn. They had already decided to no in-fighting until everyone else was out of the game. It was agreed upon by wolfish smiles on all three of them.

For the most part, the mock battle went exactly as they planned it to. The setup of the battle range had lots of cover space and low roofs, which made Murphy’s expertise incredibly valuable as he had to locate and dispatch the enemy from a low vantage point over a difficult terrain. Murphy had to keep on the move and Carlos and Tyrell would follow, either at a distance as bait or ahead to ensure safety.

Carlos had the pleasure of shooting Mikhail in the back and listening to the Russian curse up a storm and Tyrell had collapsed a pyramid of rusted oil drums on a fucker they all hated. Goddamn Smith, that little bitch.

They were having the time of their lives.

“Drop your weapons!”

Carlos and Tyrell spun around, firearms raised.

Murphy’s face was twisted in embarrassment and insult, hands up in surrender. There was a thick arm wrapped around his neck, the barrel of a paintball gun pressed right up under his vest. Without a single fucking doubt, it was going to hurt like hell if that gun went off.

The Sarge was grinning at them from over Murphy’s shoulder, chin ducked down and shoulders folded in to protect as much of his impressive mass behind little Murphy as he could.

Carlos, snarling, dropped his gun. Tyrell gave him a look like he was fucking insane –

In the second Tyrell looked away, the Sarge whipped the barrel of his gun toward them and painful orange splotches appeared on their chests, dead center over their hearts.

With a heartless cackle, Nicholai shoved Murphy toward them. As the little guy tripped, the Sarge shot him in the ass, making Murphy yowl in pain and shock.

“Sentiment will get you killed,” Nicholai told them, looking Tyrell and then Carlos in the eye. For all that he was smiling, his gaze was dead. Cold. Like ice. “Next time, you shoot, no matter who is in the way. Or you will lose again.” He pinned Carlos down with those pale, frozen eyes, smile falling into a curl of disappointment. “Show me you understand.”

“I understand that that was a fuckin’ coward’s move!” Carlos scowled darkly at the Sarge. “You used him as a human shield. Forget about sentiment, where’s your _pride_?”

Nicholai cocked his head. “Pride does not save you from death. You do what you need to do to survive.” He sneered, upper lip pulled back from his teeth. “Rather a coward than a corpse, Oliveira. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have to end this game so that we can get back to matters that are actually important.”

Carlos thought of Nicholai as the embodiment of death and winter. He didn’t think anyone would ever disagree with him on that.

~::::~

Carlos wasn’t high enough in status to be a part of any important conversation, but he managed to catch the tail-end of one as he entered the administrative wing of the U.B.C.S. complex on the hunt for Mikhail. He was thinking of suggesting a movie night, something to raise morale and encourage that sentiment that Nicholai hated so much. The mock battle had been days ago and he was still seething.

As he marched down the corridor, the second door on his left opened with a ruckus of laughter and cursing.

The laughter was deep, almost melodious, and it made Carlos freeze in his tracks as a feeling of dread washed over him.

The laughter petered away and was replaced by a condescending, heavily accented voice. “How adorable you are, believing that you have a say in the matter!” Colonel Sergei Vladimir stepped out of the office and directly into Carlos’s path. He was looking over his shoulder at someone inside the office.

“They are humans!” Carlos heard Mikhail snarl. “Not cannon fodder. Not _lab rats_!”

“They have been bought and paid for,” Vladimir _purred_. “They are whatever we need them for.” He turned and saw Carlos for the first time. There was no surprise at seeing him, only a flicker of interest and glee in the Colonel’s one eye.

Carlos was thinking of the showers when those six fuckers had ganged up on him and Tyrell had helped him fight back.

There was no Tyrell this time and it felt like Carlos had just been spotted by an entire fucking battalion on Viagra. Vladimir was looking at him awfully closely, his scarred lips turned up in a considering smile. His hands folded at the small of his back, Sergei began to circle Carlos like a shark.

It was all Carlos could do to stand at parade rest, staring blankly straight ahead. _‘If I play dead,’_ he was thinking, _‘Maybe he’ll go away.’_

Sergei circled closer. Carlos swore for a second that the pervert even sniffed his hair.

With trepidation, he watched two huge ass guys wearing long white robes and wraparound sunglasses follow after Sergei. _‘Those cannot be human.’_

Mikhail came stomping out of the office, red in the face. “I will not stand by and allow you to abuse my men like this – ” He froze at the sight of Carlos caught in the Colonel’s sight. There was as much horror in his gaze as Carlos felt pooling in his gut.

“Go on,” Sergei teased. “Tell me _exactly_ how you will not allow me to abuse your men. In what ways _should_ I abuse them?” Carlos shivered in revulsion as Sergei ducked his head, breathing against his ear. Even his breath felt disturbingly cold. “Especially when they are so pretty and exotic. Will you show me how I should abuse him?”

 _‘Play dead,’_ Carlos reminded himself. _‘Don’t fight, that’ll make it worse. Be as uninterestin’ as possible. Be a wall. Be a fuckin’ wall, Carlos.’_

Behind a sallow-faced Mikhail sauntered a bored-looking Nicholai.

_‘I am so fucked. I am so fuckin’ fucked. Goodbye to my fuckin’ virgin ass, they’re gonna tear me apart. Fuckin’ shit. Hell no. God damnit. Alicia, forgive me, I don’t know if I’m as strong as you were. I don’t know if I can do this.’_

There was not a single doubt in his mind that Nicholai was about to incite the Colonel into action. Not a single fucking –

“Sergei, you fucking joke,” Nicholai called out, meandering past Mikhail and the monsters and right past Carlos without even looking at him. “Is that it? You think you are funny?” The flat of his palm hit Sergei in the shoulder, forceful enough to make the massive Colonel roll back on his left heel before righting himself. “Nobody is laughing.”

Sergei, unbelievably, despite every horror story Carlos had heard about him, did _not_ immediately murder Nicholai for his insubordination. No, the Colonel _giggled_ , as if amused by the Sarge.

“Ah, Nicholai. I regret that we cannot spend much time together anymore.”

“That makes one of us,” Nicholai drawled, eyes actually rolling in their sockets. “You tell me you are going to pay for an expensive dinner and then try to change your plans at the last second? You are not amusing.”

There was the realization that Nicholai didn’t care for Carlos.

This was quickly followed by the realization that Nicholai was the single person in existence invulnerable to the Colonel’s legendary murderous rage.

“Perhaps we can bring this body with us for dessert, yes?”

“You fool. Always thinking with your dick. Watch it get chopped off someday soon.” He strolled past. “I am leaving! And I have your debit card. Whether you are there or not, you are paying.”

“Aw.” Carlos could actually hear the pout in the dangerous man’s voice. “You are always so cruel to me, my dearest friend.”

“You are not special,” Carlos heard Nicholai reply on top of the heavy thumps of his boots going down the stairs. “I am cruel to everyone!”

He heard Sergei pat down his thick overcoat. “Ah, he took my wallet again.” And then, with a sigh of disappoint against the shell of Carlos’s ear that made him shudder, “So sad. I was looking forward to seeing if you are as delicious as you look. Have a good night, comrade. I will be seeing you again.”

That was a fucking threat if Carlos had ever heard one.

There was a pause. As if a parting treat to himself, Sergei’s mouth opened, the wet-saliva sound of his lips parting and tongue moving making Carlos tense even more, and then closed around Carlos’s neck, just beneath his jaw. He bit down with _painful_ force, even sawing his head side to side, and Carlos gritted his teeth as he felt his skin break. Sergei finally pulled away, licking at the blood he had spilled. “There! Something to remember me by, comrade.” He stepped away and chirped, louder, “Good evening, comrade Viktor! Expect another visit soon when my schedule allows it. Remember what we have discussed.”

He didn’t dare move a single muscle until Sergei and his freak guards were out of sight and out of hearing range. When he could no longer hear their thundering footsteps, his knees locked and then gave in, dropping him to the carpet. He pounded a white-knuckled fist against the ground, biting down on every noise of rage and fear and self-loathing that bubbled in his throat like bile.

_‘Why does this keep happening, Alicia?’_

A gentle, grandfatherly hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Come, Carlos, come. I will dress that for you.”

There was no promise that it wouldn’t happen again because they couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t. Mikhail did not have the power to stop Sergei from having what he wanted. There was only a quiet shared pain of a future that had yet to pass and a humiliating present.

Carlos ended up where he had been planning to go the entire time, in the Platoon Leader’s office. Mikhail gestured to one of the two seats in front of his small metal desk, which Carlos collapsed into, his nerves raw. Mikhail went around his desk, grabbed a first aid kit, and then came back to him. “I never thought I would see the day where I was grateful for Nicholai, that heartless bastard,” Mikhail said as he pulled the other chair closer and plopped down. He rested the kit on his lap and gave Carlos’s wound a brisk cleaning. This was admittedly more care than Carlos had been expecting, so he let himself relax into the proof that Mikhail cared for his wellbeing.

“He didn’t do it for me,” Carlos pointed out tiredly.

“No,” Mikhail agreed. “He does nothing for anyone but himself. He thinks only in currency and what people owe him. That being said…” He peeled open a large band-aid. “I do not believe he cares for Vladimir’s habit of forcing himself on company that does not want him.”

“He just won’t put his own life at risk to save anyone else,” Carlos surmised. “Figured as much.”

Mikhail chuffed. “The way he just spoke to Vladimir? If I were to say those same things to that monster, he would have had my head crushed and my naked, decapitated body defiled. Nicholai is one of two people who can talk to Vladimir like that and the other is Lord Spencer himself.”

“So, what? You’re sayin’ he went out of his way to protect me from his _friend_?”

“Never,” Mikhail rebuked. “He went out of his way to insult the man he both respects and despises. You just happened to be a good excuse. Thank God for that.”

~:::::~

Carlos started a new habit of telling Tyrell everything he had to do in a day. From drills to lessons to meetings to eating to showers. And then he would ask Tyrell how he should go about his day in the most effective manner that would make him essentially invisible to anyone looking for him. Tyrell had a good understanding of where and when people were in the compound, considering it a survival skill to know what his enemies were up to at all times. Every day following Vladimir’s threat, Carlos lived on a randomized schedule created by Tyrell. Wherever there was wiggle room in Carlos’s day, he was impossible to find. Whenever there wasn’t wiggle room, he was with a group. Herd mentality wasn’t going to save him if Vladimir demanded his company, but it made him feel more secure all the same.

With his weird-ass schedule, he ended up taking care of other important matters at weird-ass windows of opportunity.

It was getting close to 1:00 a week after Vladimir and he was folding his clothes. The laundry room was empty except for him and he was fucking exhausted after his day. Lights out was encouraged if not enforced by 22:00 so that everyone was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the start of the day at 5:00. Carlos hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately.

He was scared out of his goddamn mind. Tyrell didn’t understand, despite how helpful he was being in keeping Carlos out of harm’s way, but Murphy had gotten a particularly crazed light in his eyes after Carlos had vaguely explained that someone higher up had taken an interest in him. Murphy knew what was going on. He knew what was at stake. Murphy had taken to following Carlos as close as he could during the day. The thing was, though, the kid needed his beauty sleep or else he was useless. He had conked out at least three hours ago.

So, yeah. Carlos was alone in the middle of the night and he felt like some weakass bitch in a horror movie, about to get slaughtered by some demon.

 _‘I’ll just kill him if he tries anythin’,’_ Carlos told himself for the millionth time. Just like always, he conceded. _‘Can’t fuckin’ kill him. Guy’s a tank. Makes me look small.’_ Which was an impressive feat. Carlos was 175 centimeters tall and 83 kilograms. Sergei was 202 centimeters tall and 110 kilograms. The guy had height and mass over Carlos. Not only that, he had more combat experience and those inhuman bodyguards that followed him everywhere. All that aside? Vladimir had the power to send Carlos right back to prison in Bolivia. And if Carlos somehow managed to kill Vladimir and survive his bodyguards, there was no doubt in his mind that he wouldn’t be rewarded but heavily punished for his actions, even if he was acting in self-defense.

 _‘What did Alicia tell me? She’d just close her eyes and put her mind in a box with all her happy memories. She’d disassociate. She stayed strong for a long time doing that.’_  
Fuck, he missed his big sister. He missed her voice, her hugs, her dark brown eyes just like his. He missed her singing. She’d loved Samba, had been obsessed with Gilberto Gil after he had come out with _Aquele Abraço_. She had loved to listen to Carlos sing.

“A voice of an angel, Carlitos,” she had said.

God, how did that song even go? He hadn’t heard it in years. He tripped over the first few words, stubborn to be remembered, and then the rest began to flow through as if a dam had broken. As it turned out, he had never forgotten Alicia’s favorite Samba song.

_“O Rio de Janeiro continua lindo_

_O Rio de Janeiro continua sendo_

_O Rio de Janeiro, fevereiro e março_

_Alô, alô, Realengo - aquele abraço!_

_Alô, torcida do Flamengo - aquele abraço!”_

Carlos kicked his right foot back, took a tiny step forward with his left, and then brought the toe of his right to the heel of his left. Just a simple Samba. Just a little footwork, nothing impressive.

He was remembering making dinner with his sister, watching and laughing as she sambaed around the entire kitchen. She’d lived for this, for dancing and singing, even more so once she had come back home away from the man who had abused and used her. “This reminds me why life is good,” she had said. She had hugged him so dearly. “This and you.”

_“Chacrinha continua balançando a pança_

_E buzinando a moça e comandando a massa_

_E continua dando as ordens no terreiro_

_Alô, alô, seu Chacrinha - velho guerreiro_

_Alô, alô, Terezinha, Rio de Janeiro_

_Alô, alô, seu Chacrinha - velho palhaço_

_Alô, alô, Terezinha - aquele abraço!”_

Left, right, left. Right, left, right. Foot back, tiptoe forward, feet together. He danced and sang as he finished folding his last shirt with gusto, bringing the reasonable load under one arm to carry back upstairs.

_“Alô, moça da favela - aquele abraço!_

_Todo mundo da Portela - aquele abraço!”_

He spun on his heel to leave the laundry room, kicking his heel back one last time.

 _Todo mês de fevereiro - aquele –_ Sonofabitch!”

He froze, deer in the headlights, and his laundry flopped to the floor.

Nicholai was leaning back against the door – it being the kind that swung inward and not outward – with legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded over his chest. He was stripped down to a cotton grey shirt and matching sweatpants, bare feet on the cold cement. At his feet was a drawstring bag of presumably dirty laundry. His head was relaxed against the door, eyes half-lidded as he considered Carlos.

“I,” he began with a drawl, “have no fucking idea what you were just singing. I do know that it sounded too happy for the middle of the night.” His eyes glanced at the gauze on Carlos’s neck.

Carlos didn’t want to deal with the questions of everyone in the barracks seeing a nasty bite mark under his jaw, so he had kept it covered and spewed some bullshit about a bad shaving accident.

Nicholai obviously knew it was not a bad shaving accident.

“Very chipper for someone on borrowed time,” he continued. His eyes snapped back to Carlos’s. “Or are you looking forward to spending some _quality_ time with Sergei?”

“Fuck. _You_.” Carlos had half a mind to leave his laundry behind, bulldoze past Nicholai, and make a run for it, freedom be damned.

The fear was back. He remembered the video the guards had shown him of his sister’s brutalized and naked body. He was next. Carlos was next and there was no way of stopping it from happening.

Nicholai pursed his lips, eyes narrowed in thought. “I stopped being a callboy for men a long time ago,” he finally announced. “There will be no more ‘fucking me’. Perhaps, though, you would like to be fucked?”

Carlos’s mind stuttered to a halt on this unexpected nugget of history. Nicholai’s cold, dead eyes were waiting apathetically for an answer, even as he leered.

Suddenly, Carlos had a better understanding of this heartless bitch.

“What _happened_ to you?” Carlos asked. “What made you like this? Huh?”

“I made me like this,” Nicholai answered evenly. “I am whatever I need to be to survive. And you? In order to survive, what can you be? Can you be a whore for the Colonel? Or are you still too _proud_?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He shouldered off the door, picked up his bag, and moved aside.

Carlos scooped up his clothes and barreled past him, fuming and afraid.

~::::::~

“Just so you know,” Carlos told Tyrell the next morning, heavy bags under his sleepless eyes, “Sarge does his laundry in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, I already knew that,” Tyrell told him. “If you had told me you were doing laundry last night, I could have warned you. That creepy fuck does everything alone. I haven’t even ever seen him eat or take a piss.”

“Then how do you know when he’s doing stuff?”

“Simple.” Tyrell gave a shrug. “If there’s a window of time when no one else is doing something, that’s when he’s most likely doing something.”

Carlos groaned tiredly. “Well, can you help me avoid him too on top of everyone else?”

“You see how white that bastard is?” Tyrell asked him. “You see how absolutely white he is? That’s because he’s a ghost. I’m convinced that man just walks through walls. If _he’s_ looking for you? He’s going to find you no matter what, and you won’t even see him coming.”

Carlos thought that that actually made a lot of sense.

~:::::::~

In the showers, at least, Carlos always had either Murphy or Tyrell. Tyrell had some sort of fearmongering campaign going on where no one bothered him when he was alone, so it was more often Carlos and Murphy that teamed up. Murphy was small and baby-faced, which made him a prime target for the few fuckers still roaming around that weren’t afraid of Mikhail or them. Carlos was largely left alone after he and Tyrell had laid waste to the attackers that had tried to pin him down almost two months ago. Didn’t mean he was eager to test fate and stand naked and alone in a chamber that was far removed from the barracks and was separated from the public corridor by the cavernous locker room.

That day, so far, everything was going okay. He and Murphy had the showers to themselves, following Carlos’s self-preserving schedule, and were scrubbing down fast.

Therefore, it had to only be a minute, maybe two, after they turned on their own showerheads that a third abruptly roared to life.

Carlos and Murphy both flinched from the unexpected noise, heads whipping to the left.

Just three nozzles down from Carlos was… Nicholai.

Nicholai, who Tyrell had pretty much _just_ told him avoided social interactions like a vampire avoided sunlight. And he was… he was naked.

Carlos’s eyes dropped without his prior approval. _‘Holy shit, white’s his natural hair color.’_

Here was the thing: Carlos had always known that he wasn’t straight. He had just happened to also know that his Catholic sister would have been troubled if her little brother had turned out to be bisexual. On top of the memory of Alicia, Carlos had Murphy to worry about. His little brother had been gangraped by almost two dozen men for days. Carlos had the feeling that Murphy wouldn’t take kindly to finding out that Carlos liked men as much as he liked women.

Carlos meant to tear his eyes away, soap up and leave in record timing, but his eyes dragged over ivory-pale skin covered in downy white hair and stretched over sinewy muscle, pockmarked by scars and burns – wait, what the fuck.

Carlos had seen those exact circular burns on his big sister after she had come home. Someone had put their cigarette out on Nicholai’s flesh, and often. Carlos’s eyes jumped from one to the next like he was playing Connect-the-Dots and he ended up watching Nicholai’s arm flex, long-fingered hands soaping up a solid abdomen, scrubbing through white pubes. The motion of his hands made his dick wiggle between thick thighs and looking at those pillar-strong thighs meant Carlos just _had_ to check out that side-profile ass and, Goddamn, Nicholai had some cheek on him.

He followed the curved line of Nicholai’s spine back up to his shoulders, the sharp jut of his jaw, and then he realized that Nicholai was watching him. Not as obviously as Carlos was watching _Nicholai_ , but Carlos could see those pale eyes turned toward him even as Nicholai faced forward.

Carlos jerked his own head front and center, then swung his head toward Murphy. Murphy was also staring at Nicholai, though not with anything approaching lust unless one included bloodlust.

The way Murphy looked at Nicholai like he was ready to leap across the room and tear into the Sarge with his bare teeth was startling. Carlos had already figured out that Murphy could handle himself, but he hadn’t seen that kind of rage and hatred since he had told Carlos about his little brother getting assaulted.

With a start, Carlos realized that Murphy was looking at Nicholai the same way he had looked at the gangbangers because, to him, _they were the same._

Murphy had probably only met Vladimir in passing or heard of him through rumors. He had no way of knowing that Carlos had accidentally stumbled across the Colonel on his own. In his mind, the greatest threat to Carlos’s wellbeing had to be Nicholai, the Sarge that had already proven to not give two damns about their lives.

If Murphy kept glaring at Nicholai like that, the Sarge was going to prove to them how expendable their lives really were. Carlos reached out, squeezing once on Murphy’s slick shoulder. The kid swung his eyes to Carlos, full of protective determination and a willingness to bathe the showers in blood once more.

Carlos shook his head slowly, making solid eye contact. _‘Not him,’_ he was thinking, and hoping that Murphy was understanding. _‘I’m not worried about him.’_

Which was true, surprisingly. Nicholai was not the guy who haunted Carlos’s nightmares or who had turned Carlos’s world upside down. The Sarge was a heartless bastard, but not a rapist… as far as Carlos knew?

Fuck, he hoped the Sarge wasn’t a rapist like his good friend Sergei Vladimir.

Murphy reluctantly faced forward again, jerking the harsh, exfoliating soap across his body as he tightly reigned in his rage.

 _‘So angry for such a little guy,’_ Carlos couldn’t help but think affectionately. His gaze slipped back toward Nicholai. _‘I had no fuckin’ idea ghosts were built like that.’_

He noticed that there was a tiny curl to Nicholai’s lips. Pleased. _Smug_.

Like a dumbass, Carlos provoked the Sarge. Knowing that the Sarge was watching him out of the very corner of his eye, he turned his body – just a smidge. Just enough that Nicholai had a slightly more frontal view of Carlos, just enough to watch him drag his sudsy hand over one dusky nipple and tug on it, pinch, roll it until it was a pebble.

 _‘Now who’s smug, bitch,’_ Carlos thought victoriously, unable to control his own smirk as Nicholai’s penis began to plump up almost immediately. _‘That’s right, I am. You know you want some of this.’_ He massaged his soapy hand over his abs, combing through his pubes, and then wrapping it around the base of his cock.

This was the wrong thing to do, somehow. Nicholai’s thickening cock deflated before his very eyes. The Sarge threw a frosty look at him, sneering.

 _‘He doesn’t get fucked anymore,’_ Carlos recalled. _‘Cigarette burns. Scars on his knees. Looks like someone started carvin’ their name in his back, but I can’t read that Russian shit.’_ Carlos changed tactics. Murphy was scrubbing the soles of his feet, maybe less than a minute from turning off his water, and Carlos would have no reason to stay behind without him.

Carlos had to be careful how he turned his profile because the last thing he wanted was to face his half-hard cock toward Murphy. That might lead to some confusion. He chose to face forward again, bent his left leg at the knee, and then rubbed his soapy fingers between his full ass cheeks. A good way to get clean, of course. No one enjoyed smelling like ass.

He tipped his head back under the spray of lukewarm water and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nicholai’s mouth fall open on a harsh exhale.

_‘Fuck yeah, I win.’_

Wait, what the fuck did he even win?

The joy of knowing that Nicholai wanted him?

Well… that actually did feel kind of good for his self-esteem. Everyone knew Nicholai only wanted money. If he was lusting after Carlos, that could only mean that Carlos was irresistible.

_“Yeah, and that’s a fuckin’ problem right now.’_

Carlos had his water off a second before Murphy, looking anywhere but at Nicholai.

 _‘Why is he even here?’_ And especially with those scars. Carlos didn’t think they were ugly or anything, but they proved that, at some point in Nicholai’s past, he’d been vulnerable and at someone else’s mercy.

Impossible to imagine now when Nicholai was fully willing to use anyone of them as a human shield to preserve his own life.

 _‘That was learned,’_ Carlos thought to himself, snapping up his towel and drying off as he and Murphy retreated to the lockers. The last showerhead shut off as soon as they were out of sight. _‘Nicholai learned to preserve his life no matter the cost. If he’d shown sentiment or pride, he’d be long gone by now.’_

Behind them, he heard a heavy, resounding _crack!_ As if someone had just punched a titled wall.

Nicholai had revealed himself to them – no, to Carlos – for some reason that was beyond his understanding. Whether he hadn’t gotten the reaction he had wanted or revealing himself had left him feeling too vulnerable, Carlos had the feeling that the Sarge was not okay as he stood in the wet chamber by himself.

“I forgot my soap,” Carlos told Murphy, who moved as if to follow. “I’ll be fine. Just wait here.”

He clutched his soap small and close in his hand so Murphy wouldn’t see it.

Padding back into the showers, he saw Nicholai with his head pressed to the tiled wall, knuckles of one fist bleeding, the side of the other fist pressed to the tiles. The tension in his back and shoulders was more than Atlas had to have while carrying the entire world.

Carlos wasn’t particularly quiet crossing the chamber, so he knew Nicholai heard him. The Sarge did not lift his head.

Once Carlos was at his side, he wasn’t entirely sure what he meant to do or say. “Can I touch you?” he asked in a whisper. That seemed like a decent-enough start as long as Nicholai didn’t kill or laugh at him.

Nicholai’s forehead ground against the tiles as he tilted his face toward Carlos. A pale, apathetic eye considered him and his glistening, naked chest.

“Do I get to touch in return?” Nicholai asked just as softly.

Carlos ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Just a little.” He hoped Nicholai didn’t take that as invitation to touch him under the towel.

Nicholai nodded his head once in allowance.

Carlos didn’t have long before Murphy came in with an assault rifle – and Carlos did not doubt that he would have an assault rifle somewhere nearby – and so he ducked his head, hand splaying over the cool plane of Nicholai’s shoulder blade, and he pressed his mouth carefully to one puckered cigarette burn just below the nape of Nicholai’s neck. He actually felt the older man stop breathing.

“Touch me,” Carlos whispered against the burn. “Do it fast. Murphy’s not going to stay away any longer.”

“Everything okay, Carlos?” Murphy called, voice dangerously close. Only just out of sight.

Nicholai shrugged off Carlos’s hand. “Raincheck,” he said, and then he stepped away from Carlos and snapped up his own towel.

 _‘That little fucker,’_ Carlos though to himself. _‘What the fuck does he mean “raincheck”?’_

The Sarge and Murphy passed each other at the archway between the showers and the lockers. Murphy gave Nicholai a suspicious look and Nicholai ignored him.

“Careful not to drop the soap in here again, Oliveira!” he called over his shoulder.

 _‘I hate that guy.’_ But, fuck, did he really?

Well, he sure as hell didn’t like him.

As it turned out, though, he was in lust with the Sarge and that was definitely not good.

~::::::::~

It was the morning after Nicholai’s raincheck and he had spent practically the entire morning run trying to figure out when or how the Sarge was going to cash it in. He wasn’t sure if he was looking forward to it or if he wanted to never see the older man again.

At the end of the run, he, Murphy, and Tyrell trekked toward the communal showers. Carlos’s dark complexion was saving his pride since he couldn’t seem to stop himself from blushing as he remembered what he had gotten up to last night in the same chamber with Murphy right there next to them.

“Carlos!”

Carlos, Murphy, and Tyrell came to an abrupt halt. Mikhail was coming toward them with a somber look on his face and Carlos believed that his life was about to end.

“I have the aloe vera you asked for,” he said.

_‘I didn’t ask for any…’_

Mikhail was looking him in the eye, trying to impart some hidden meaning. “Apply it every day,” he told Carlos, slapping a bottle of aloe vera gel into his nerveless hand. “The pain will be less.”

“You get burned?” Murphy asked incredulously.

 _‘He’s not talkin’ about gettin’ burned,’_ Carlos realized. _‘He’s telllin’ me to use this as lube. He’s gettin’ me ready for whenever_ he _shows up.’_

Mikhail couldn’t stop this from happening, so he was doing the next best thing – making sure that Carlos was prepared. That, when it did happen, Carlos wouldn’t get torn apart.

He cleared his throat, nodding his head in understanding. Mikhail closed his eyes, his face a mask of regret. The Platoon leader turned on his heel and marched away.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Carlos nodded to Murphy. “What, you think ‘cause I’m from Bolivia that we don’t get burned?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Fucker.” Carlos forced himself to smile. Tyrell’s eyes were narrowed in thought, aware that something shifty was going on and yet unaware of exactly what that was.

“Y’all stink,” Carlos told them. “Let’s go scrub down.”

He clutched the gel bottle, hating it even as if he was grateful.

~:::::::::~

After dinner the same day, Carlos found everyone in their dorm surrounding his bunk bed.

“What’s going on?” he demanded to know. No one answered him, so he pushed and shoved his way toward his bed. He was tired and confused and his nerves were shot, waiting for Vladimir to appear and make good on his threat.

He had already started using the aloe vera gel to stretch his ass open. If it hadn’t been for the situation he was preparing for, he would have enjoyed the slick, filthy feeling of his wet hole. As it was, the stretching had been perfunctory at best, some preliminary measures to make sure that Vladimir didn’t tear him open from the inside too bad.

He hated that he was preparing himself to get raped, had already accepted that it was going to happen and that there was no stopping it. It wasn’t a matter of _if_ , but _when_ , and he was so tired of waiting for it to happen that he felt like crying.

Having to fight to get to his bed did _not_ help at all. He almost got in a fistfight. Luckily, there were multiple dorms in the barracks and his room only had twelve bodies in it. Murphy and Tyrell were on his side, so it didn’t take long or too much effort to get to his bed.

It just felt like it did.

Someone at the front of the group – fucking Smith – shoved him. “Where the fuck did you get chocolate from, brown boy?!”

Carlos was fucking exhausted, alright? He grabbed Smith by the collar of his shirt, cocked his fist back, and sent it flying. Only after Smith hit the ground did everything before _brown boy_ register. “What chocolate?”

That was when Malik pounced on Carlos and then Tyrell and Murphy, who had been impatiently guarding his bed, leaped to his defense.

Two minutes into an-all out war, the yelling and punching drew attention.

“What is going _on_!?”

Everyone stopped dead at the Platoon leader’s ferocious growl. Carlos had someone’s hand fisted in his hair and he had his elbow against someone’s throat. It was Smith in his hair, he realized, and he was about to K.O. Malik. Murphy was on the ground and Tyrell had a busted lip and an unconscious body at his feet. It looked like Holland, Watiti, and Vice had started fighting each other for no goddamn reason and then everyone else had backed off, looking innocent as soon as Mikhail’s voice rang out.

Carlos shoved Malik away. Smith pulled at his hair, a sharp tug, and Carlos snarled as he thrust his elbow back into the bastard’s unprotected belly. Smith went down wheezing.

Smith pointed up at him. “He started it!”

“ _He started it?_ ” Mikhail mocked. “What are you, a toddler?”

“He threw the first punch!”

Mikhail turned to Carlos. “Is that true, Carlos?”

Carlos was half-paying attention to his Platoon leader, half-paying attention to Nicholai standing behind Mikhail. He tasted blood on his tongue.

“It’s true,” he said. “I threw the first punch.”

“He was provoked!” Watiti defended. “Smith called him a brown boy.”

If anything, Mikhail looked even less impressed. “Did that hurt your _feelings_ , Carlos?”

In truth? Carlos had heard worse. It hadn’t been the name so much as the timing. He was exhausted, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Anything was better than going back to prison in Bolivia, but he was really wondering what he meant when he thought _anything_.

 _‘Keep living,’_ he told himself. _‘Alicia did. Just keep living.’_

The name-calling had just been kindling to a fire. Carlos had snapped under too much pressure.

“I lost my temper,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Mikhail.”

“Oh, well, if you are _sorry_ … Then you will not mind cleaning your dorm tonight, you and your teammates, until there is not a spec of dust and you have all learned to avoid childish name-calling and temper tantrums. You are a _unit_! You will _act_ like it!”

His eyes glanced past Carlos and he did a double-take.

He marched to Carlos’s bed and picked up a long, slim red box. It looked fancy with gold trim on the lid. He held it up to Carlos’s face. “Where did you get chocolate?”

Carlos shrugged. “I don’t know. This is my first time seeing it.” Literally his first time. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of it before he had decked Smith.

“Hm.” Mikhail considered it. “Mine now. Start cleaning!” He tucked the box under his arm and jerked his head at Nicholai, signaling that it was time for them to leave.

Nicholai, for some unknown reason, looked mad as hell.

~::::::::::~

There was a track worn down by the U.B.C.S. that went around the entire complex and then into the surrounding woods. They were required to do 5 kilometers in twenty-five minutes or less in their physical training uniforms. It was a nightmare and even Carlos, who’d been active for most of his life, hated the morning runs. It was worse when they were required to get in full combat gear with their firearms and complete the same run in thirty-two minutes. Umbrella had insanely high standards for them and Carlos had seen some mercenaries disappear who couldn’t keep up with the physical demands of training.

The good news was that their morning runs weren’t timed against them. They either made it back in time to shower and eat breakfast or they didn’t and that was on them. Once a week was when Mikhail would announce that they were doing a timed run and every two weeks was when they had to put on their combat gear. Mikhail gave them a warning ahead of time despite Carlos hearing rumors that other Platoon leaders didn’t give any forewarning and would just pick a random day of the week to surprise their members.

This was probably another reason why people thought Mikhail was soft and why Carlos thought he had lucked out when it came to Platoon leaders.

Murphy and Tyrell, though both lean, were not necessarily fit. The first few check-ins, Carlos really thought they’d be goners. By some miracle, or perhaps by the power of fear, they’d always just make it before their timers ran out. They had gotten progressively better as the weeks tumbled on and they were now holding their own respectably well. Murphy was no longer vomiting on the side of the path and Tyrell didn’t pass out anymore from lack of oxygen.

So it wasn’t too bad that they ran off ahead without Carlos once Carlos waved them away.

“I need to take a shit!” he told them. “I’ll catch up with you soon enough.”

Murphy had been especially weary, especially as they were essentially at the point furthest away from the complex, but they eventually listened to him and continued running. It was beginning to drizzle and the rain was slowly breaking through the barrier of tree branches and leaves above him. They had been at the back of the pack and so there shouldn’t – _shouldn’t_ – be anyone coming up behind them.

Carlos found a fallen tree by the path and plopped down, legs stretched in front of them. He waited for a ghost.

He waited a long time – more than an hour, he thought – and was drenched for his efforts. When he started to shiver, he began thinking that this had not only been a dumb idea, it had been one of the fucking _dumbest_ ideas of his life, and he had made some piss-poor decisions before.

It was hard to tell time with the trees and the rain, but he had a feeling he had missed lunch and would miss his Platoon meeting if he didn’t get moving again. He called the morning a dud and decided to keep moving.

As he pushed off the fallen tree, feeling numb and cold to the bone, he heard the _split splash_ of someone running through puddles.

Nicholai appeared just in sight down the path. He was a few meters away from Carlos when he at last noticed he was no longer alone as he preferred.

He didn’t slow down, no. Of course not. He kept running past a cold and teeth-chattering Carlos.  
“Well?” he called over his shoulder, grey shirt sticking to his back, soaked sweat pants hugging his ass. “Are you coming or do you want to die of pneumonia now?”

Carlos forced his tired, cold body to start running and catch up with Nicholai.

“D-d-did you g-g-get me ch-ch-choc-c-colate?”

“What was that?” Nicholai asked, tilted his head toward Carlos. “You remind me of that cartoon character, that Plumpy the Pig.” He was breathing hard between bits of conversation. He ran like he was trying to escape something.

Carlos – soaked, freezing, and less familiar with such a brutal pace – was having trouble keeping up, much less upholding the discussion. “P-P-Porky! _Porky_ the p-p-pig!”

“What about a pig?”

Carlos gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut for the next two kilometers, focusing on his breathing and not getting left behind. Heat began to circulate through his limbs and that helped fight off the chill, though he swore he still felt it in his bones.

The problem was that, once he stopped talking, he didn’t have the energy or breath to keep talking. Nicholai wasn’t slowing down, he was speeding up. Carlos was naturally competitive and kept trying to get just a step ahead, but Nicholai just stared forward and kept going like a tireless machine.

 _‘What’s he runnin’ from?’_ Carlos asked himself. He thought of cigarette burns and scars, a word carved into Nicholai’s back that could have been a name. _‘Who’s he runnin’ from?’_

No one fucked Nicholai anymore. How many times had he had to run as fast as he could until that became true?

At fucking last Nicholai slowed to a walk just outside of the complex. Carlos nearly tripped over his own legs and barely managed to stumble up the stone stairway to the double doors.

“You could not keep others from it,” Nicholai said, apropos of fucking _nothing_. “Mikhail and I ate it instead. The next time I give you something, make sure to take better care of it. Yes?” He cocked a brow, as if waiting for Carlos’s word.

“… Wait, are you talking about the fuckin’ chocolate?”

Nicholai’s hand came up without warning, fingers almost touching Carlos’s curls. Carlos, wheezing for air, froze.

_‘He’s cashin’ in that raincheck?’_

The Sarge stared at his hand, so close to Carlos, and his tongue peeked out, touching the corner of his mouth. “No,” he finally said. He withdrew his limb. “Not yet.”

 _‘I think I’m actually disappointed. That rat bastard!’_ It was true. For a second there, Carlos had been excited. He’d been ready to be touched.

Nicholai pushed through one of the doors and didn’t even hold it open for Carlos.

~:::::::::::~

Maybe Nicholai had threatened Carlos to be more careful with his gifts, but at least the Sarge became more careful with delivering them.

Carlos had flopped facedown into bed before he realized there was something on it, something that was hard and just beneath his pillow.

Lights were already out in the dorm, but a rectangle of light flooded in from the corridor. Carlos carefully pulled the object free and twisted around to try and catch some of that infiltrating glow.

It was… a box.

Okay.

 _‘Well, Oliveira, why don’t you try_ openin’ _it?’_

Smart enough.

Carlos teased the lid off the small box and inside was a, a new wristwatch. A nice one with a yellow gold band.

Carlos stared at it, bug-eyed. The guy who thought in currency probably had a small fortune stashed away like a squirrel hiding nuts, but that didn’t mean Carlos thought Nicholai actually ever spent any of it, especially on anyone that wasn’t himself.

 _‘Holy shit, I think he likes me. I think he’s more than just in lust with me, I think he_ likes _me.’_

Carlos bit the inside of his cheek. There was no way he could actually wear it, and it boggled his mind that Nicholai had wasted money on a gift that would rarely be used for its true purpose.

He lifted the watch out of the box, feeling it and looking at its gold numbering set against a face that had to be black since Carlos couldn’t see it. He saw the big hand and little hand moving over what appeared to be a void.

Looking at the dark face in the darkest corner of the dorm, he caught sight of pale paper still in the box.

Without fully thinking about it, he slipped the watch onto his wrist, grabbed the paper, and retreated quickly toward the restroom for better lighting.

He opened the note in a toilet stall just in case anyone followed him or had any last-minute business to do.

 _Do not worry,_ it said. _I paid nothing for this gift._ There was blood on the paper.

That was… that was it.

Wait, no. The blood was on his fingers?

Frowning in bleary confusion, Carlos took another look at the expensive-looking gold watch. At the latch where he had secured it was coagulating blood, not dry enough to have turned to crust and yet as cold as the gold itself.

With a vicious curse, Carlos stormed out of the stall and thrust the watch with both of his hands under a faucet, scrubbing away.

 _‘I’m keepin’ it,’_ he decided. _‘And I’m gonna tell him that he’s an asshole to his face.’_

At the next morning run, as soon as Nicholai ran past him, Carlos stormed after him. “You’re an asshole!” he yelled right in Nicholai’s face as they sprinted side-by-side.

Nicholai grinned, a flash of black humor in those pale eyes.

_‘Of course the only time he shows life is after he does somethin’ unholy and gives me the incriminatin’ evidence as a gift. He must think he’s a goddamn comedian.’_

“I cannot help but notice your new watch!” Nicholai exclaimed. “I wonder where that could have come from?”

Carlos looked him dead in the eye, unimpressed. “Yeah, that’s what I’m fuckin’ wonderin’ too!”

Nicholai _laughed_ , and the cackling, hoarse sound that poured out of him reminded Carlos of a fire crackling out of control. Nicholai stumbled to a stop, one hand braced on his hip and the other pinching at the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to hide his mirth.

Carlos stopped with him, shocked and strangely aroused.

“Can I touch you?” he asked.

The laughter petered out. Nicholai’s hand drifted down his face, massaging his chin. “What do I get in return?”

“You can touch me,” Carlos offered, since that had been the offer last time. “Just a little.”

Nicholai scrutinized him. “Fine,” he said. “Touch me.”

Carlos leaned in, hesitated, and then carefully touched his mouth to Nicholai’s. Just a chaste touch, a second’s time. Carlos stepped back after the mere heartbeat of contact, hands at his sides. Nicholai tasted of nicotine and mint toothpaste. Carlos licked his lips.

Nicholai’s eyes were half-lidded, lips parted.

“Touch me,” Carlos told him. “It’s your turn.”

Nicholai swayed closer, as if drawn by some outer force. It was when they stood like this that Carlos remembered he was 12 centimeters shorter than the older man, having to look up with Nicholai so close. He tilted his head toward the Sarge’s, ready and willing.

“Raincheck,” Nicholai breathed against his mouth.

Carlos groaned. “You can’t keep pullin’ that shit.”

“Oh? There is no rule saying that I have to touch you immediately.”

“I’m makin’ it a rule now!” Carlos snapped. “From now on, whenever I touch you, you _have_ to touch me too. No more rainchecks.”

“Hm.” Something wicked burned in that gaze. “Right now, that is a rule? I have my two rainchecks and every touch now must be used immediately?”

“Yes!”

“Touch me.”

“… Huh?”

Nicholai was grinning in a strangely inviting way and there was some life in those eyes and Carlos was just… unsettled and intrigued.

Carlos leaned back in for another kiss, deeper this time, and Nicholai’s lips parted easily over his. His tongue slipped into the Sarge’s mouth, flicking over the slick muscle hidden there.

He pulled away again before he could find out how Nicholai’s tongue would have played back, breath stuttering.

Nicholai’s tongue rolled around in his mouth and over his lips. “My turn to touch?”

“Yeah…”

The smirk that came over the Sarge’s face was downright dangerous for anyone’s health. He caught Carlos by his hips and twisted his own body, throwing the younger man off balance. In the next moment, Carlos’s back was to a tree and Nicholai had pressed against his front from pelvis to chest. He tore the bandage off Carlos’s neck – no longer hiding a bleeding wound so much as the imprint of teeth – and threw it aside. His lips touched where Vladimir had bitten him, tongue lapping at the sweat and musk of his skin.

_‘Holy shit, he’s gonna bite me too.’_

Carlos sighed, low and long, and he tilted his head to give Nicholai more room.

The Sarge chuffed against his flesh and then his teeth clamped down just under Carlos’s jaw, right over where Vladimir had bitten him as if Nicholai meant to replace the Colonel tooth by tooth. The breaking of skin was still painful, but at least Nicholai didn’t shake his head like a dog and make it worse.

“Good boy,” Nicholai crooned as he lapped at the injury. “Such a good boy for me.”

Carlos whimpered despite himself, going limp against the tree.

“Ah! Someone likes that.” Nicholai nudged his nose against Carlos’s temple, mouth wet against his ear. “Do you want to be my good boy, Carlos?”

_‘Yes…. No… Fuck… Maybe…’_

Carlos pushed Nicholai away. “I’m not missing breakfast again,” he said, as if his neck wasn’t bleeding and he wasn’t half-hard in his pants. As if he had any control over this situation.

 _‘I think I actually did have control of that situation. He let me go. He’s letting me go.’_ Carlos made a quick dash for the complex and Nicholai stayed step-in-step with him without touching him again.

_‘Why am I so fucking disappointed by that?’_

He had no fucking clue.

~::::::::::::~

It took five weeks.

From the time the Colonel had threatened him and the moment he actually saw the Colonel again, it was five weeks.

He found Carlos while he was eating lunch with Tyrell and Murphy. They shot to their feet and stood at parade rest as the Colonel loomed over them.

Carlos stared into the middle distance, feeling his insides roil and burn with acid. He was reminding himself to not fight, to be docile, to give Vladimir no reason to be rough with him. He’d been stretching himself every day for weeks now and he was hoping that he was loose enough that Vladimir wouldn’t tear him apart if he forced himself into Carlos dry.

“Greetings, comrades!” The Colonel cheered jovially. “You may return to your seats. I am here to speak privately with comrade Oliveira.” His huge hand landed low on Carlos’s back, practically on his ass. It was publicly proprietary. Murphy’s eyes widened in horrified realization and Tyrell stared dead-eyed straight ahead, revealing nothing.

Reluctantly, with no other course of action available to them, Tyrell and Murphy jerkily fell back into their seats like puppets controlled by an amateur.

“Walk with me,” Vladimir ordered. His two freakish bodyguards stood just behind him.

Carlos forced himself to walk with the Colonel.

“I know I bit you very hard,” Vladimir said. “Did it happen to get infected?”

Carlos flinched. “What?”

“The bite mark. It looks very fresh.” The Colonel raised his hand from Carlos’s ass and pressed his thumb into Nicholai’s mark.

Carlos barely managed to stop a hiss of discomfort. Carlos had been the butt of a number of jokes the past few days because of the bite on his neck. He’d forgotten to cover it up, a complete 180° after he had obsessively made sure no one knew Vladimir had assaulted him. Murphy had been livid, convinced that Carlos was attacked, and Tyrell had looked at Carlos as if he was a particularly interesting puzzle. Carlos had mercenaries asking what it would cost to have some time with him, thinking that his “new” watch and the bite mark were correlated, and Carlos’s knuckles were swollen and red by the number of broken noses he had doled out.

Broken noses he had strangely gone unpunished for, something he thought had to do with the Sarge.

If Carlos let himself think about it, he realized that he’d liked having Nicholai’s mouth on him, his body pressing Carlos into that tree, life leeching into those pale eyes as if he was a plant and Carlos was the sun waking him up from winter. It felt good. It felt _powerful_ to be wanted by a man like Nicholai, who had the scars of a fucked up life and who was heartless and also not and such a fucking enigma that Carlos was entranced and enraged by him all at the same time.

He did _not_ like Vladimir’s hand on the bite mark, on _him_ , and he had to focus to not react.

The Colonel leaned in, so fucking tall and massive that it was like he eclipsed the world in frigid darkness and left Carlos to turn to ice in his shadow.

“You have not been playing with other boys while I was gone away on business, have you?” Those scarred lips were coming toward him and Carlos had a feeling that the Colonel’s kisses included drawing blood and ripping out tongues. He felt acid in his throat and pondered how pissed Vladimir would be if Carlos just puked on him.

“Would you call me a boy, Sergei?”

 _‘Thank fuck. Wait, no… What’s he doin’ here? What is he_ goin’ _to do?’_ Carlos dared to turn his head and behind them at some distance was Nicholai, sauntering closer.

Vladimir’s hand fanned over the side of Carlos’s head. “Ah, my dear Nicholai! Have _you_ been playing with this exotic boy?”

Nicholai was much closer now. He reached out, hand to the back of Carlos’s shirt, and pulled the younger man’s spine flush against his front and away from Vladimir.

 _‘That’s one raincheck,’_ Carlos realized.

“ _Playing_ with him?” Nicholai scoffed. “I _own_ him. You would not disrespect me after all the time we have known one another by taking what is mine.” It was not a question.

The Sarge wrapped his other arm around Carlos’s waist, his hips pushing against Carlos’s ass. The younger man’s eyes rolled shut, feeling something half-hard and long through two layers of cargo material against the cleft of his cheeks.

“Aw…”

Carlos’s eyes fluttered opened.

Vladimir was _pouting_ , like a small child denied a snack. “I want him. Let me have a turn, Nicholai. You cannot be so selfish as to keep him to yourself.”

“Yes,” Nicholai growled. “I _can_.” His arm flexed and Carlos grunted as his ass smacked against Nicholai’s lap, catching his bottom lip between his teeth.

 _‘There is some kind of alpha bullshit goin’ on right now that’s gonna determine how I feel about sex for the rest of my life,’_ he summarized. _‘If Nicholai wants me to moan like a whore for him, I’m gonna moan like a whore for him.’_

“Let me watch at least,” Vladimir begged, eyes dark and predatory. “Cut a hole in his pants and fuck him open right here. He is already halfway there.”

“I am a possessive man, Sergei, you know this. The face my bitch makes for me when he cums is only mines to see.”

_‘Did he just call me his fuckin’ BI-’_

Nicholai’s other hand shoved up under Carlos’s shirt, finding a nipple. He pulled and rolled it between his fingers and thumb until it was a rough pebble.

_‘I’ll be his fuckin’ bitch, fine.’_

Nicholai’s teeth scraped over the bite wound he had put on Carlos. “Tell him who you belong to,” he ordered.

 _‘Holy shit, this is a dick measurin’ contest. I’ve got a fuckin’ dick too.’_ His eyes fell to the tent forming between Vladimir’s hips, obvious enough to lift his heavy overcoat. _‘Anyone goin’ to explain why the fuck the Colonel has a horse dick? Fuck it, I’m not gettin’ in the way of this contest.’_

Carlos swallowed thickly. “I – Nicholai. I belong to Nicholai.”

He felt the Sarge’s sharp smile against his neck.

Vladimir, for a moment, looked as if he might murder the Sarge, one of the two people he ever listened to.

Nicholai’s hand went under Carlos’s chin, forcing him to tilt his head back onto the Sarge’s shoulder. It felt purposeful, Nicholai’s hand resting over Carlos’s throat. A full-body shiver coursed through him.

 _‘These Russians are fuckin’ animals,’_ he realized. _‘Why am I so into this?’_

Dangerous question – probably should go unanswered.

“He is a good boy for me,” Nicholai murmured against Carlos’s throat. “He is _my_ good boy.”

Carlos couldn’t see Vladimir well from his upward angle, but he heard the Colonel sigh.

“Fine, fine. The good boy is yours. Please, Nicholai, my dearest friend… Never take my prey from me again _or else_.”

Nicholai, one hand wrapped Carlos’s gullet and the other around his waist, pulled the younger man to the side. Vladimir and his guards stormed off the way they had arrived.

 _‘He never really stopped touchin’ me, so how do I know if he used his second raincheck?’_ Carlos asked himself. And then, _‘Holy fuckin’ shit, the Colonel is gone.’_

He couldn’t stop a sob from ripping free of his throat.

“Pathetic,” Nicholai grumbled. “You cry and nothing even happened.” He combed his fingers through Carlos’s bangs, soothing despite his condescending words. 

Carlos somehow managed to twist around, the hand in his curls coming around the back of his skull, the arm at his waist shifting until the Sage had his hand possessively over Carlos’s ass.

“You _sonofabitch_! Touch me!” Carlos demanded. “Very much. Touch me everywhere.”

Nicholai raised a cool eyebrow, glancing up and down the corridor. “Here?”

“No, asshole!” He dislodged himself from the Sarge, gripping a wrist in his hand and tugging. “You have a room of your own?”

“Do _I_ have a room of my own? Yes, I have a room of my own! I don’t slum like you dogs do.”

Carlos _growled_ , stepping in close and nipping that sharp jaw. “You gonna make me your bitch, Nicholai?”

“You already are,” Nicholai growled back. He swatted at Carlos’s buttocks, forcing them to keep moving forward. “Tell me – _have_ you ever been fucked by a man before?”

“Ah, no – but I’ve been stretchin’ myself.” _‘’Cause I thought Vladimir was goin’ to rip me wide open.’_

Nicholai did a quick sweep of the corridor with his eyes before hauling Carlos close again, rutting against his back. “Will not take much to get you open and ready then, yes?” He tugged at Carlos’s earlobe with his teeth.

The younger man panted, hands slapping against the nearest wall to support himself. For precious seconds, he let the friction of Nicholai’s clothed cock gyrating against his covered ass arouse him even more than he already was.

_‘Alicia, please forgive me. I need this. I’m willin’ and I hope that was all you ever wanted for me ‘cause it’s all I can give you. I’m goin’ to bed with this fucking heartless bastard that’s gettin’ off on callin’ me a bitch.’_

He pushed off the wall, away from the horny Sarge. “If you want sex, we need a room and lube _now_.”

“Is that all? Your standards are pitifully low. You have not even asked for a bed!”

Listen, Carlos was thinking that he’d be ecstatic if Nicholai just cut a hole through his pants and boxers and fucked him through his layers and the only reason he wasn’t suggesting it was because Vladimir had said it first. No, he didn’t give a shit about a bed! He just didn’t want to get ripped open while having sex with another guy for the first time, and he didn’t want the entire Platoon to see.

“ _Nicholai_.”

Nicholai pushed the palm of his hand against his tented crotch, gritting his teeth for a moment. Finally, with a harsh breath, he pushed forward. “Follow quickly, then!”

As if Carlos was going to let Nicholai slip away now.

They would have gotten to Nicholai’s private unit minutes faster if it wasn’t for Nicholai’s habit of slamming Carlos against the nearest wall and humping him like an overly aggressive mutt.

“ _Now_ who’s the dog, _Sarge_?” Carlos mocked.

“You are still my bitch!”

“I’ll believe it when I feel it. This is just _pitiful_.”

Nicholai _snarled_ and the trip to his chambers was much quicker after that. The door to his unit slammed shut – locking automatically, Carlos knew – and then Carlos was being shoved into the bedroom, that door getting shut and locked too.

Paranoid, Nicholai was.

Carlos actually found it comforting, considering who they had just pissed off. He didn’t think either door would stand up to Vladimir’s guards, though.

“Strip!” Nicholai barked, already pulling off his own vest and shirt.

Carlos scrambled out of his civvies, loathe to tear his eyes away as imperfect skin stretched over impressive musculature was bared to him. He tripped out of his sneakers and socks and shoved his pants and boxers down to his ankles before kicking them off.

Nicholai had… had slowed way the fuck down. His tongue was between his teeth, teasing, and his hands were glacial as they undid his belt. He hooked his fingers in the belt loops of his cargo pants and edged them down at a maddeningly slow rate, the deep V that framed his hips making Carlos’s mouth water.

“Please, babe!” he cried.

“ _Babe_?” Nicholai mocked, sneering.

Carlos was unrepentant. “Let me give you a reason to get naked faster, _babe_.”

He jumped onto Nicholai’s full-sized mattress with his knees, then jumped again so that he landed on his back with a pleased “Oomph!” He spread his legs wide, knees bent, and slobbered on a single finger until it was dripping. Eyes on Nicholai, who had completely frozen, Carlos pushed the wet digit against his puckered hole, sliding inside.

“If only my _babe_ had lube,” Carlos moaned. “I’d put on a real good show with actual lube. I might even put out.”

Nicholai pushed his cargo pants down his legs, and then had to catch himself on the edge of the bed as he began to timber when they caught above his still-laced boots. He scowled darkly at Carlos as if he was to blame for his clownery.

 _‘That’s all you, babe,’_ Carlos thought victoriously, snickering. _‘You’re a fuckin’ disaster.’_

“No lube?” Carlos taunted. “Guess I’m only showin’ myself a good time.”

“Stop, stop, I have lube.” Nicholai bent over at the waist, making quick work of his boots. He managed to step out of his apparel successfully this time and stalked onto the bed, coming to crouch over Carlos like a winter demon.

Carlos raised his face, lips parted. Nicholai hummed pleasantly as he took the hint, kissing the younger man. His tongue laid siege, his teeth nipped, and Carlos was conquered as Nicholai sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and nibbled on it. Nicholai let it go when Carlos whimpered and ran his tongue over Carlos’s one more time. One hand down by Carlos’s head, the other wormed under his pillows and pulled out a mostly-full tube of lubricant. He thumped it down on Carlos’s abdomen, making his muscles flinch, and then reared back onto his knees. He wrapped his hands under Carlos’s thighs, dragging the younger man’s ass practically onto his lap.

Impatiently, the Sarge snatched up the lube again, smeared a gratuitous amount over his own fingers. He wriggled a digit inside of Carlos right next to the one he was already squeezing down on. The feeling of having _someone else_ in his ass made the experience different. Bigger. Novel.

“So loose already,” Nicholai groaned. “And wet. Like a greedy cunt.” Carlos wrapped his free hand around his cock, tugging it as Nicholai began to stuff his hole with fingers. Carlos thought three would be enough, especially if Nicholai fanned out of his digits, but it seemed like Nicholai was well on his way to fisting him. He slipped his pinkie finger inside of Carlos and the only thing stopping his entire hand from bombarding Carlos’s innards was his thumb caught outside the rim of his anus, rubbing at his sphincter. The thought was tantalizing and terrifying. Carlos rolled his hips toward the older man.

“Babe, please! Don’t you wanna fuck me?”

“Very much,” Nicholai admitted. He pulled his fingers free with a slick noise and stroked his wet fingers over his cock.

Nicholai fully erect was worthy of legend. His cockhead was blushing red, the shaft curving beautifully toward his navel. He was a handful in girth and long enough to make Carlos dizzy. He also had a heavily furred nutsack beneath that cock and a white happy trail that led up his abdomen.

“Look,” Carlos said, and he cupped Nicholai’s sack in his palm, rolling the testes over his fingers. “Snowballs!”

“Do not think I will not end your existence if you ever call my balls that again,” Nicholai growled, thrusting into Carlos’s touch.

“Instead of threatenin’ me, you could be inside of me. You sure you have your priorities right?”

Nicholai snarled, swatting Carlos’s hand away. The only warning Carlos got was feeling the hot, slick tip against his ass and then –

“HOLY _fucking_ SHIT!” Carlos clenched his hands in the quilt beneath him, torso arching off the bed and chest flushed darkly. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit…”

Nicholai had paused. “Breathe, Carlos.” He soothed his hand through Carlos’s hair, carefully undoing tangles. “You want what comes next, I promise you.” He began to roll his hips, sliding in and out a few centimeters, so slow and shallow that nothing hurt.

“I forgot how much it could hurt,” Nicholai breathed.

_‘That’s fuckin’ heartbreakin’, man.’_

“It’s okay,” Carlos wheezed. “I’m fine. Gimme a minute.” He pressed his hand against the Sarge’s chest, nails lightly scratching through downy white hair. The younger man snorted. “All this fur… Must be the abominable snowman.”

Nicholai rolled his eyes, scowling. “Do you want to have sex or do you want to fight?”

“Oh, sex. For sure, sex.” His body was warming back up, the burn and stretch of another person inside of him zinging up his spine. It felt good. Not great, but it was still nice. Carlos grunted and pushed back into the inquisitive thrusts.

Nicholai – smirking like a ghoul – took this as permission to hold him by the waist in bruising fists and goddamn _hammer_ his no-longer-virgin ass like they were being timed.

Nicholai was grunting now from the force of his hips slapping against Carlos’s buttocks. Carlos threw his head back, moaning endlessly as the air was fucked out of his lungs.

 _‘Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh,_ fuck _! He’s inside me, that feels so good, fuck, yes, yes, yes, yes – !’_ “Guh! Fu-uck! Fuck y-yeah! Go-oddamn-mn, _babe_!”

Nicholai outright cackled at his blissed out expression, his slack mouth, and his dark, hazy eyes. He sat up on his knees, lifting Carlos’s hips clear off the bed, the muscles in his arms straining. The angle made breathing even harder and changed how Nicholai’s cock ruined him. Carlos was practically helpless but to just take what Nicholai gave him, bent into a bridge with his shoulders still pushing into the bed.

“Yes! Fu-uck yes!” Carlos was jerking fast at his cock and pulling at his own nipples while he kept feeling hot flashes of intense, burning _pleasure_ every time Nicholai plunged inside of him.

_‘That’s my prostate. Holy shit, that’s my prostate’_

It was hard to see a blush on Carlos, but Nicholai was downright _rosy_ with exertion and lust, red in the face and under the white fur of his chest.

 _‘This is what it feels like when spring comes up through the winter snow,’_ Carlos thought whimsically.

How Nicholai was holding him meant that his hands were full keeping Carlos at the perfect height and position to accept his cock. The fucking _noises_ Carlos’s ass was making, sopping wet and squelching, reminded him of having sex with women. How their juices around his cock made sex slick and loud.

 _‘Holy shit!’_ “T-talk to me, ba-abe. Pl-lease!”

Nicholai’s breath was see-sawing out of his mouth, arms jittering. “Talk to you…? How about I tell you – about your greedy, sopping – cunt! You do not take cock like a virgin – you take cock like a _slut_.”

“Can’t you – you be nice to m-me?”

Nicholai stopped moving entirely. Carlos panted, a hand tangling in his hair. He was leaking pre-cum all over his abdomen, his body _throbbing_ in the best imaginable way possible. There was a tangle of tension in his belly, about to explode and force Carlos over the edge.

“No, no, no, no… That’s not nice at all…” Carlos dug his heels into the bed, trying to roll his hips toward the Sarge. “Babe, please… Feels so good.”

Nicholai’s lips were curling into some sort of sinister grin. “Tell me how to be nice to you,” he purred. He pulled back, slipping free of Carlos’s loose ass. The Sarge let go of Carlos’s hips and he sprawled limply into the bed, legs kicking out. Carlos squeezed his fist around his cock, staving off his climax for just another minute as he tried to figure out the Sarge’s plan.

_‘He wants something’… fuck, what does he want? Give him anythin’, just don’t stop.’_

He swallowed around his dry throat – hiccupped – and wrapped his hands under his knees, pulling his legs up and apart. “Just don’t stop,” he begged. “All you gotta do to be nice to me is _don’t stop now_.” Nicholai watched him passively, still smirking. Carlos spread his legs wider. “C’mon, look at me! I want it! I want your fuckin’ dick!” Still nothing. “You’re not bein’ nice at _all_ right now.”

_‘Fucker’s waitin’ for somethin’. Just give him what he wants, I’m so close.’_

Carlos’s tongue lolled over his bottom lip. “C-c’mon, babe. I – my…” He dug through the last things Nicholai had said to him. “I’m a… I’m _your_ slut. I need it. My… c-cunt…” _‘God fuckin’ damn it, he’s the one who told me to not let pride get in the way. Fuck it.’_

Carlos let go of one leg, his fingers slipping between his buttocks to tug at his sloppy hole. His whole body jerked at the pressure on his raw rim. “My cunt’s greedy and – and I need it. I need you, babe.”

“So I _was_ treating you nicely,” Nicholai purred. “You just didn’t know it yet.”

_‘This guy’s a fuckin’ asshole and I can’t believe I’m havin’ sex with him. Can’t believe I already know I’m gonna keep havin’ sex with him.’_

The Sarge laid over Carlos, sternum to Carlos’s collarbone, his nose buried in the younger man’s hair. “If you want my cock so badly, bring me inside.”

Carlos shuddered. The hand he had at his hole moved, fumbling around until he felt Nicholai’s hot, wet dick. With a tug, he aligned them and Nicholai flexed his abdominals, sheathing himself.

Carlos’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, lips parting on a softer gasp. He wrapped his legs around Nicholai’s waist, hands smoothing over a scarred canvas of skin, clawing at letters he couldn’t read. He scraped at the broad planes of shoulder blades as Nicholai moved rhythmically, gently compared to the harsh fuck he had been ruining Carlos with just a minute before. He hooked his ankles together, using the leverage to bring Nicholai closer, to pull him that much deeper.

He was breathing slow and erratically, like he was dying, lungs sputtering, and it was hard to remember that he’d ever thought of Nicholai as dead and cold when everything was awash with vibrant, scorching sensation. His dick was caught between their torsos, stimulated every time Nicholai bowed his belly toward Carlos’s.

“Fuck, this is… _Yes_ , babe. Yeah, this is _good_ …”

“So noisy,” Nicholai muttered into Carlos’s hair, panting. “Why so noisy? Just enjoy.”

“Fuck me, no… You’re in my, my ass. I get to say… whatever the hell I want… Goddamn, can’t believe I’ve – I’ve never done this before.”

Nicholai groaned, somewhere between pleasure and exasperation. “I cannot either. You were made for this.”

“I’m gonna pretend that this is a hot slut comment… and not some bullshit… about me being from South America.” _‘He calls me exotic like Vladimir, I’m choppin’ his dick off and leavin’.’_

“I _sincerely_ don’t care where you were born.” Nicholai plunged as deep as he could inside of Carlos, forcing a strangled cry from the younger man’s throat. Nicholai ground his hips against Carlos’s ass, assaulting his prostate with single-minded determination. Carlos writhed, legs flexing even though there was no way to pull Nicholai deeper.

The Sarge pushed up on his hands, belly still bowed to rub against Carlos’s cock, like the older man was doing yoga at a time like this. Sweat was dripping from his hairline, eyes hazy and proud, lips bruised red. “No, no, no…” Nicholai shook his head, devouring Carlos with his gaze. “You were made for _me_. Say it.”

Carlos ran his tongue over his teeth, gasping for breath as he burned and pulsed inside. He pulled back his lips in a snarling grin. “Make me.”

Nicholai laughed, a huff of noise and air, as if he was delighted. “Oh, you are fun. You’re very fun.” He dug his elbow into Carlos’s one thigh until he was forced to untangle his legs and let the Sarge go. “Turn over, on your belly.”

Carlos weighed the pros and cons of putting up a mock fight. He wanted to see what Nicholai would do, was excited by the idea that the Sarge might get a little rough with him again. In the end, he decided to obey. He wanted this. Whatever the hell was about to happen, he was nothing but willing.

He rolled over, stretching out across the bed. He humped into Nicholai’s quilt, a long, happy sigh leaving him as the warm sweat on his back cooled. His ass was throbbing, hole winking, and he had never thought he’d feel like this – the truth was, though, he felt so goddamn empty and he’d do just about anything Nicholai said to get filled again, to get fucked deep and hard.

 _‘He’s fun. He’s_ very _fun.’_

Nicholai splayed Carlos’s legs wide, laying down between them. His one hand planted on the bed next to Carlos’s shoulder and the younger man could only feel, _experience_ , that throbbing cockhead brushing against his aching hole again before it thrust inside, scraping against his sore, overstimulated insides.

He groaned low in his chest, stretching his legs wider apart. He slapped his hand across the bed until he found a pillow and dragged it under his head, embracing it as if for comfort.

Nicholai’s other hand landed next to his other shoulder. “Give me the other pillow.”

Carlos, humming, eyes shut and face tucked into the one he had already stolen, fumbled blindly around until he found the second one. He dragged it toward them until Nicholai grabbed it from him. “Lift your hips.”

“You’re in… my _ass_. _You_ lift my hips.”

“Well… if you insist.” Nicholai wormed an arm underneath Carlos just above his legs and Carlos groaned weakly as his prostrate was smashed against the older man’s dick.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” He bit down on the pillow, swaying toward the incredible, painful, euphoric, throbbing pressure.

 _‘Oh._ This _is why we’re called pillow biters.’_

The pillow was stuffed under him, making him whimper as it pushed against his leaking cock. Nicholai let him sag into the bunched up ball of cotton.

“Much better,” he purred. “You agree?”

“Mm hm…”

Carlos _squeaked_ – probably one of the most fucking embarrassing noises of his life – when a hand whacked against his ass cheek so hard he felt himself jiggle around Nicholai’s penis. He clenched down and blubbered in ecstasy.

“You were made for me. Say it.”

“Will you spank me again if I _don’t_?”

“I will spank you as much as I like if you do.”

 _‘This kinky Russian fucker…’_ Carlos swallowed his pride. “I was made for you.”

That open palm whacked his other cheek and Carlos fluttered erratically around the Sarge, whimpering nonsensically.

“ _Again_.”

“Fuck, I was made for you!”

“Good boy.”

With Nicholai spread over his back, the angle for spanking had to be awkward. The Sarge managed all the same, every thrust accompanied by a mind-numbing _slap_! against Carlos’s buttocks. He felt them heat up under the abuse, start to burn, get sore, and he groaned for more.

_‘Goddamn, I am a slut. Holy fuckin’ shit, how…’_

And everything felt so fucking _incredible_. His cock was getting stimulated between his belly and the pillow, made damp with his pre-cum. The burn of the fabric should have been chaffing. Instead, it felt good and rough and Carlos loved it. Nicholai was ruining him deep and hard with every hitch of his pelvis, fucking Carlos open and making a permanent home for himself. The _Slap! Slap! Slap!_ Of Nicholai’s flesh against his, of Nicholai’s palm against his beaten cheeks, was driving him _crazy_!

It took seconds, maybe an eternity, to realize that he was just laying there and taking it, not even trying to reciprocate or move.

 _‘Do somethin’… Don’t be selfish, Oliveira, move your body, make it good…’_ He tried. He honestly tried. He went to push himself up, to get leverage to gyrate back into Nicholai, but the Sarge was not having it.

The older man bit down on the nape of his neck, holding him down like he really was a bitch being bred. There was no pain this time of skin breaking, but the warning was there.

_‘Goddamn, he wants me to stay still. I’m gettin’ spoiled.’_

Carlos went limp once more, letting Nicholai have what he wanted. A willing hole in a willing, dazed-quiet body.

_‘Holy shit, he actually shut me up. When did I stop talkin’?’_

Didn’t matter. So fucking close…

He clawed at the pillow, biting down on it again. The tension in his belly _snapped_ and he felt it throughout his entire body like a livewire. “MMmmmmph…” His ass clenched down hard and tight and Nicholai cursed between his shoulders as his dick was milked for all it was worth, forced to secede to Carlos’s hungry body.

“ _Yes_!” Nicholai hissed, hot breath panting on the line of Carlos’s spine. The older man clumsily combed his hand through Carlos’s sweat-slick curls, catching on tangles and pulling. Carlos could only groan tiredly in objection to the treatment, mind and soul floating somewhere outside of his worn-out body. “Oh, yes…”

He could hear Nicholai wheezing behind him, hips twitching in the throes of orgasm, and he felt warm and wet inside. Oversensitive and numb. Blissed beyond words.

“Think you just used up your rainchecks,” Carlos grunted.

The Sarge chuckled against his slick skin. He pressed sloppy kisses over Carlos’s shoulders. “Are you telling me to get off?”

“Hell no.”

“I thought so.” Another kiss. “A good boy,” Nicholai praised. “Such a good boy for me.”

“F-fuck… Fuck yeah…. Goddamn…” He nuzzled into his pillow – and, yeah, he had claimed it for his own. “Best you’re ever gonna have.”

Nicholai chuckled, a surprisingly genuine sound. “You misunderstand. _I_ am the best _you_ will ever have.”

“You’re funny if you think I’m gonna give you up without a fight. That was the best sex of my _life_.”

“Greedy boy, keeping me all to yourself.”

“Hell yeah. All mine now, babe.”

“I do not recall agreeing to this.”

Carlos stuttered as Nicholai’s limp dick slipped free of him. Gauchely, he let go of the pillow with one hand to feel his hole. He really was fucked loose, so goddamn open that he slipped three fingers inside of himself without even feeling it. His digits got wet with pre-cum, semen, and lube. Pressing his fingerprints to his insides, he heard more of that delicious, filthy _schlick_ of juices being moved around.

He rubbed his cheek against the pillow, biting his bottom lip as he felt how absolutely Nicholai had _wrecked_ him.

His eyes slitted open, head turned to the side, and he saw Nicholai watching what he was doing in his ass with tired hunger.

“You gonna let me go just like that, babe?” he asked. “You gonna give me up now that we’re both havin’ the time of our lives? Are you really gonna choose to live in a Carlos-less world?”

Nicholai’s tongue slicked over his lips like a hungry dog, like he wanted to breed Carlos again like the bitch he was. His eyes trekked over Carlos’s bruised-red buttocks, up the glistening slope of his back, and finally looked straight into Carlos’s gaze.

Those pale eyes sure as hell weren’t dead, and they weren’t cold.

“Yeah?” Carlos burred. “That’s what I thought.” He wiggled his body, letting go of his sore hole. “You got another pillow? ‘Cause this one’s a mess. Think it got on your quilt too.”

“Planning on staying, are you?”

“You plannin’ on passin’ up on post-nap sex?”

“… Point.” He swatted at Carlos’s ass, forcing a whimper from the sore body beneath him. “Get up. You can have the first shower.”

“Or… we could save water and you can shower with me.”

“… Another point. Get up, let’s go.”

“Fuck yeah.”

The most interesting part of taking a shower with Nicholai was realizing that the Sarge had his own private bathroom.

He really had just been showing off, testing the waters so to speak when he’d appeared in the communal showers that time ago.

The shower wasn’t necessarily large, but it was enough for two large men to squeeze into as long as they were okay with touching. Which Carlos sure as hell did not mind. He soaped up his hands and scrubbed them through Nicholai’s short white hair, across his furred chest, through his happy trail and pubes. Nicholai watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, as if absorbing this intimacy to analyze later.

Carlos lathered up his hands again to wash out his own hair. However, Nicholai had apparently taken a page from the younger man’s book. He swatted Carlos’s hands away so that he could have the pleasure of reducing Carlos to humming, blissed out flesh once more. Carlos swayed toward the older man as long fingers massaged his scalp, getting his mop of hair sudsy and fresh. He bowed his head back, throat on display, and grinned dopily as Nicholai took the invitation and nibbled on the bite mark under his jaw.

The process of cleaning each other off was… extremely and achingly domestic, like they were actually in love or some shit. As if Nicholai was capable of that. Maybe he was, but Carlos didn’t think that this _was_ love. It was… it was something. Ownership? Probably. And Carlos had practically begged for it.

 _‘Should’ve left when I had the chance,’_ Carlos thought tiredly to himself. _‘Ah, hell. I was never gonna stay gone.’_

His hands massaged soap into Nicholai’s back, the older man’s head bowed to rest on his shoulder. He felt those scars under his hands, those Russian letters he couldn’t read.

“What’s it mean?” he asked.

Nicholai didn’t answer. He just shook his head, hands resting lightly at Carlos’s waist.

_‘He’s gonna keep his secrets. I don’t think he can get much more vulnerable than this without killin’ me to protect himself.’_

The logic was unsettling, even as it fit what he knew about Nicholai.

 _‘At least he’s protectin’ me from himself. Seems to care about what’s happenin’ to me. Sure as fuck loves to watch me fall apart for him.’_ He pressed a kiss to Nicholai’s upturned cheek. _‘Not a bad beginnin’ for whatever the hell this is. I think I could even be happy like this.’_

“I ever tell you I had a big sister?” Carlos began, opening himself up for scrutiny, making himself vulnerable. Being a goddamn fool or maybe brave enough for the both of them, he wasn’t sure.

The older man was quiet for another moment. Carlos’s hands lathered up and over his upper arms, the hot spray of water hitting the Sarge over his shoulders and making Carlos’s clean curls stick to his face.

“No,” Nicholai finally answered. “You never told me.”

Carlos smiled.

_‘Holy shit, I think this can work.’_

“Her name was Alicia…”

**Author's Note:**

> As I was writing this, I was thinking, 'You know, parts of this sound very familiar...' Then I realized that some of AnotherAnon0's kink shorts ideas had snuck into this story. Which is fair. If it hadn't been for AnotherAnon0, I'd have no idea who these men even were. 
> 
> Please let me know if I am missing any tags. Please leave feedback! I would love to know your thoughts and feelings.


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